Interests

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT INTERESTS - PAGE 5

Responding to a wave of rebel violence exceptional even by his country's standards, President Liamine Zeroual of Algeria on Friday blamed traitors manipulated by "foreign interests" for the killing and vowed to "battle against the terrorist groups until their final eradication." His 20-minute speech to the nation broke the official silence that has accompanied a wave of car-bombings and other killings that is estimated to have left 200 people dead since the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began Jan. 10. Until Friday, state-controlled television had scarcely mentioned the violence.

By Thom Shanker, the Tribune's senior European correspondent | July 3, 1994

There is no soil outside the 50 American states where the 4th of July has been celebrated with the same bang, where themes of freedom echoed with the same resonance, as here in Berlin. This Independence Day marks the end of all that. Johnny is marching home, and few Berliners-in fact, few Europeans-are saying hurrah as America turns inward and, it seems, turns away from historic commitments in Europe and to interests elsewhere, particularly Asia. As the U.S. Army's famous Berlin Brigade parades its colors Monday on the Platz des 4. Juli, it will be one more wave in America's long goodbye to a vast military presence in Europe.

With nearly four months until Opening Day, general manager Ken Williams maintained Monday he is under no pressure to trade one of his starting pitchers and is prepared to send prized pitcher Brandon McCarthy to Triple-A Charlotte under that scenario. "I don't care if no one likes that or not," Williams told Chicago reporters at the winter meetings. "That's just the way it is. We're going to have to go down that road and take it to spring training. If a deal doesn't happen here, if a deal doesn't happen before spring training, there's still Opening Day."

Riley Brown is 12 years old and lives a life many of his peers might envy, or perhaps find incomprehensible. On any given day Riley will probably sleep until he is ready to get out of bed and then spend his time doing whatever interests him. Maybe he'll play his guitar, or go to the park to meet with like-minded friends. Or maybe he will boot up his computer and start "playing around" with HTML codes. His younger brother, Casey, 10, and his sister, Maggie, 5, do more or less the same thing.

From his church choir at age 85 to the Eagle Scouts as a youth, George H. Redding Jr. managed to put himself in the thick of things, his younger brother said. "George was always part of everything," said William Redding, of Lake Forest. "He was involved. He was interested. He was modest--but never domineering. He was just an important part of everything. "George just plain fit in." A longtime resident of the North Shore, George Hyde Redding Jr., 85, died of congestive heart failure on Wednesday, Feb. 14, at his Winnetka home.

In the coming months, as you go about your daily routine, there's a good chance you'll be approached by a volunteer who wants to talk about legislative maps. We know, we know - you stopped for a gallon of milk, not a civics lesson. But give a listen. It's important. On Wednesday, a group called Yes! for Independent Maps will launch its campaign to amend the Illinois Constitution. Its goal is to take redistricting out of the hands of the politicians who put their interests ahead of yours.

Dear Amy: Every fall, my sister, cousins and a cousin's sister-in-law have a weekend shopping excursion in our home city. We stay in a hotel, treat ourselves, shop for our children and go out for lunches and dinners. It is a great time to reconnect. I have a sister "Wendy," who we do not invite. She is offended to the point of tears when she finds we have not invited her. My two sisters and I are very close in age, but Wendy hasn't been as close to this set of cousins as my sister and I have been through the years.

Frank Thomas looks at politics like a switch-hitter looks at pitchers. It's strictly a matter of environment, of going along with circumstance. Thomas grew up poor and black in western Georgia a generation ago. Like most folks there, and with minimal thought or choice, he and his family considered themselves Democrats. Now Thomas plays baseball for a living, for which he is paid millions of dollars each year as an All-Star first baseman with the White Sox. Thomas still expends little effort debating his political beliefs, but the Big Hurt is the Big Convert.

Joseph E. Valenti's home-building career, which started during the Depression with a tiny bungalow on the Northwest Side that netted him $270, boomed after World War II when his company started building suburban subdivisions. Mr. Valenti, 91, died Tuesday, May 29, in Resurrection Hospital of complications that developed while he was recuperating from a fall two weeks ago, said his son Thomas. Mr. Valenti lived in Chicago's Edgebrook neighborhood. The son of a plasterer who came to Chicago from Italy, Mr. Valenti was able to attend DePaul University after an older brother and his three sisters passed up college so there would be enough money for him to go, said Mr. Valenti's son Joseph Valenti Jr. After receiving a degree in business, Mr. Valenti started his building company with a $50 loan from an auto dealer who lived down the street from his family's Northwest Side home.

Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent is a sad, dreary and humorless drone, until he proves himself otherwise. Vincent is the man who, last week, determined that it would not be in "the best interests of baseball" for Minnie Minoso, 68, to play in a game for the Chicago White Sox before the end of this season. The Sox had been considering activating Minoso and letting him come to bat-thus enabling Minoso to become the first baseball player ever to appear in six separate decades.